Another legendary beer joint in Moultrie was the Green House on the Tifton highway, across from the Moultrie Livestock auction barn. I guess now its still a warehouse for Plymel vending.....the beer joint has probably been closed 30 years or so. I never went to the Green House that much....I was a little too young to get in back during its heyday. Drinking age was 21, and I lived in Macon much of the time between age 18 and 24, and when I did return to Moultrie, I was married and trying to behave myself....new lawyer in town, you know. I do remember going a few Saturday nights....probably when I was home from college on the weekend. I remember one night in particular....I met a pretty young thing. I thought she was the prettiest girl at the dance, and she had eyes only for me. It was a wonderful night, course I screwed everything up the next weekend, and I never saw her again. It was at the Greenhouse in 1970 when something very sad happened....something that struck very close to home for me. There was an altercation between two old friends...one being my first cousin by marriage. A beer bottle up side of the other guys head, then a knife was pulled, and my cousins son got in the middle trying to break up the fight which had become deadly. The end result was that the son....who was a year older than me...got cut badly. When Jimmy got cut, someone said that he yelled, I am cut...and I am cut bad! He retreated, and a couple of girls got him in a car and roared off to the hospital which was on South Main at that time. The girl driving the car wrecked it just a block or two from the hospital. Jimmy, who was bleeding badly, apparently passed out from the loss of blood....and bled to death. The man with the knife was charged with murder. He was a well known and well liked man....just like my cousins. At the trial he admitted using the knife, but he claimed self-defense, or temporary insanity....after all, he was just sitting at the bar having a good time when my cousin slammed a beer bottle up side of his head. In the Fall of 1970, I happened to be living in Moultrie for a few months. I had graduated from college, had just bummed around Europe for a few months, and returned to Moultrie....crazy as a shithouse rat. There was going to be a jury trial for Jimmys killer....and I wanted to see it. I remember slipping into the Courtroom, and sitting on the back row. I had never been in a courtroom before where a jury was hearing a case. The District Attorney was George A. Horkan, Jr. Little did I know at that time, but this would be the man who would be the Judge of most of the cases I would argue over the next 30 years. The defense attorney was Sol Aultman of Thomasville, who had a reputation for being one of the best in South Georgia. I was absolutely fascinated by these two lawyers as one argued to convict this cold-blooded killer, and the other would counter that the man had been viciously attacked, and had every right to defend himself by whatever means necessary. Watching this trial probably is the reason I went back to school and got my law degree. Ten years later, Sol and I worked together as co-defense attorneys defending another first cousin of mine who was charged with murder. We won....not guilty. The jury found J.T. not guilty of any wrongdoing. My cousin soon moved away from Moultrie.....after all, most everyone held him responsible for his sons death....more responsible that the man with the knife. And I think this incident....more than anything else...started the decline of the Green House. It was not too many years later that it closed, never again to reopen.
Posted on: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 10:24:17 +0000
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